Tag Archives: students
#435748 Video Friday: This Robot Is Like a ...
Video Friday is your weekly selection of awesome robotics videos, collected by your Automaton bloggers. We’ll also be posting a weekly calendar of upcoming robotics events for the next few months; here’s what we have so far (send us your events!):
RSS 2019 – June 22-26, 2019 – Freiburg, Germany
Hamlyn Symposium on Medical Robotics – June 23-26, 2019 – London, U.K.
ETH Robotics Summer School – June 27-1, 2019 – Zurich, Switzerland
MARSS 2019 – July 1-5, 2019 – Helsinki, Finland
ICRES 2019 – July 29-30, 2019 – London, U.K.
DARPA SubT Tunnel Circuit – August 15-22, 2019 – Pittsburgh, Pa., USA
Let us know if you have suggestions for next week, and enjoy today’s videos.
It’s been a while since we last spoke to Joe Jones, the inventor of Roomba, about his solar-powered, weed-killing robot, called Tertill, which he was launching as a Kickstarter project. Tertill is now available for purchase (US $300) and is shipping right now.
[ Tertill ]
Usually, we don’t post videos that involve drone use that looks to be either illegal or unsafe. These flights over the protests in Hong Kong are almost certainly both. However, it’s also a unique perspective on the scale of these protests.
[ Team BlackSheep ]
ICYMI: iRobot announced this week that it has acquired Root Robotics.
[ iRobot ]
This Boston Dynamics parody video went viral this week.
The CGI is good but the gratuitous violence—even if it’s against a fake robot—is a bit too much?
This is still our favorite Boston Dynamics parody video:
[ Corridor ]
Biomedical Engineering Department Head Bin He and his team have developed the first-ever successful non-invasive mind-controlled robotic arm to continuously track a computer cursor.
[ CMU ]
Organic chemists, prepare to meet your replacement:
Automated chemical synthesis carries great promises of safety, efficiency and reproducibility for both research and industry laboratories. Current approaches are based on specifically-designed automation systems, which present two major drawbacks: (i) existing apparatus must be modified to be integrated into the automation systems; (ii) such systems are not flexible and would require substantial re-design to handle new reactions or procedures. In this paper, we propose a system based on a robot arm which, by mimicking the motions of human chemists, is able to perform complex chemical reactions without any modifications to the existing setup used by humans. The system is capable of precise liquid handling, mixing, filtering, and is flexible: new skills and procedures could be added with minimum effort. We show that the robot is able to perform a Michael reaction, reaching a yield of 34%, which is comparable to that obtained by a junior chemist (undergraduate student in Chemistry).
[ arXiv ] via [ NTU ]
So yeah, ICRA 2019 was huge and awesome. Here are some brief highlights.
[ Montreal Gazette ]
For about US $5, this drone will deliver raw meat and beer to you if you live on an uninhabited island in Tokyo Bay.
[ Nikkei ]
The Smart Microsystems Lab at Michigan State University has a new version of their Autonomous Surface Craft. It’s autonomous, open source, and awfully hard to sink.
[ SML ]
As drone shows go, this one is pretty good.
[ CCTV ]
Here’s a remote controlled robot shooting stuff with a very large gun.
[ HDT ]
Over a period of three quarters (September 2018 thru May 2019), we’ve had the opportunity to work with five graduating University of Denver students as they brought their idea for a Misty II arm extension to life.
[ Misty Robotics ]
If you wonder how it looks to inspect burners and superheaters of a boiler with an Elios 2, here you are! This inspection was performed by Svenska Elektrod in a peat-fired boiler for Vattenfall in Sweden. Enjoy!
[ Flyability ]
The newest Soft Robotics technology, mGrip mini fingers, made for tight spaces, small packaging, and delicate items, giving limitless opportunities for your applications.
[ Soft Robotics ]
What if legged robots were able to generate dynamic motions in real-time while interacting with a complex environment? Such technology would represent a significant step forward the deployment of legged systems in real world scenarios. This means being able to replace humans in the execution of dangerous tasks and to collaborate with them in industrial applications.
This workshop aims to bring together researchers from all the relevant communities in legged locomotion such as: numerical optimization, machine learning (ML), model predictive control (MPC) and computational geometry in order to chart the most promising methods to address the above-mentioned scientific challenges.
[ Num Opt Wkshp ]
Army researchers teamed with the U.S. Marine Corps to fly and test 3-D printed quadcopter prototypes a the Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center in 29 Palms, California recently.
[ CCDC ARL ]
Lex Fridman’s Artificial Intelligence podcast featuring Rosalind Picard.
[ AI Podcast ]
In this week’s episode of Robots in Depth, per speaks with Christian Guttmann, executive director of the Nordic AI Artificial Intelligence Institute.
Christian Guttmann talks about AI and wanting to understand intelligence enough to recreate it. Christian has be focusing on AI in healthcare and has recently started to communicate the opportunities and challenges in artificial intelligence to the general public. This is something that the host Per Sjöborg is also very passionate about. We also get to hear about the Nordic AI institute and the work it does to inform all parts of society about AI.
[ Robots in Depth ] Continue reading
Posted in Human Robots
#435687 Humanoid Robots Teach Coping Skills to ...
Photo: Rob Felt
IEEE Senior Member Ayanna Howard with one of the interactive androids that help children with autism improve their social and emotional engagement.
THE INSTITUTEChildren with autism spectrum disorder can have a difficult time expressing their emotions and can be highly sensitive to sound, sight, and touch. That sometimes restricts their participation in everyday activities, leaving them socially isolated. Occupational therapists can help them cope better, but the time they’re able to spend is limited and the sessions tend to be expensive.
Roboticist Ayanna Howard, an IEEE senior member, has been using interactive androids to guide children with autism on ways to socially and emotionally engage with others—as a supplement to therapy. Howard is chair of the School of Interactive Computing and director of the Human-Automation Systems Lab at Georgia Tech. She helped found Zyrobotics, a Georgia Tech VentureLab startup that is working on AI and robotics technologies to engage children with special needs. Last year Forbes named Howard, Zyrobotics’ chief technology officer, one of the Top 50 U.S. Women in Tech.
In a recent study, Howard and other researchers explored how robots might help children navigate sensory experiences. The experiment involved 18 participants between the ages of 4 and 12; five had autism, and the rest were meeting typical developmental milestones. Two humanoid robots were programmed to express boredom, excitement, nervousness, and 17 other emotional states. As children explored stations set up for hearing, seeing, smelling, tasting, and touching, the robots modeled what the socially acceptable responses should be.
“If a child’s expression is one of happiness or joy, the robot will have a corresponding response of encouragement,” Howard says. “If there are aspects of frustration or sadness, the robot will provide input to try again.” The study suggested that many children with autism exhibit stronger levels of engagement when the robots interact with them at such sensory stations.
It is one of many robotics projects Howard has tackled. She has designed robots for researching glaciers, and she is working on assistive robots for the home, as well as an exoskeleton that can help children who have motor disabilities.
Howard spoke about her work during the Ethics in AI: Impacts of (Anti?) Social Robotics panel session held in May at the IEEE Vision, Innovation, and Challenges Summit in San Diego. You can watch the session on IEEE.tv.
The next IEEE Vision, Innovation, and Challenges Summit and Honors Ceremony will be held on 15 May 2020 at the JW Marriott Parq Vancouver hotel, in Vancouver.
In this interview with The Institute, Howard talks about how she got involved with assistive technologies, the need for a more diverse workforce, and ways IEEE has benefited her career.
FOCUS ON ACCESSIBILITY
Howard was inspired to work on technology that can improve accessibility in 2008 while teaching high school students at a summer camp devoted to science, technology, engineering, and math.
“A young lady with a visual impairment attended camp. The robot programming tools being used at the camp weren’t accessible to her,” Howard says. “As an engineer, I want to fix problems when I see them, so we ended up designing tools to enable access to programming tools that could be used in STEM education.
“That was my starting motivation, and this theme of accessibility has expanded to become a main focus of my research. One of the things about this world of accessibility is that when you start interacting with kids and parents, you discover another world out there of assistive technologies and how robotics can be used for good in education as well as therapy.”
DIVERSITY OF THOUGHT
The Institute asked Howard why it’s important to have a more diverse STEM workforce and what could be done to increase the number of women and others from underrepresented groups.
“The makeup of the current engineering workforce isn’t necessarily representative of the world, which is composed of different races, cultures, ages, disabilities, and socio-economic backgrounds,” Howard says. “We’re creating products used by people around the globe, so we have to ensure they’re being designed for a diverse population. As IEEE members, we also need to engage with people who aren’t engineers, and we don’t do that enough.”
Educational institutions are doing a better job of increasing diversity in areas such as gender, she says, adding that more work is needed because the enrollment numbers still aren’t representative of the population and the gains don’t necessarily carry through after graduation.
“There has been an increase in the number of underrepresented minorities and females going into engineering and computer science,” she says, “but data has shown that their numbers are not sustained in the workforce.”
ROLE MODEL
Because there are more underrepresented groups on today’s college campuses that can form a community, the lack of engineering role models—although a concern on campuses—is more extreme for preuniversity students, Howard says.
“Depending on where you go to school, you may not know what an engineer does or even consider engineering as an option,” she says, “so there’s still a big disconnect there.”
Howard has been involved for many years in math- and science-mentoring programs for at-risk high school girls. She tells them to find what they’re passionate about and combine it with math and science to create something. She also advises them not to let anyone tell them that they can’t.
Howard’s father is an engineer. She says he never encouraged or discouraged her to become one, but when she broke something, he would show her how to fix it and talk her through the process. Along the way, he taught her a logical way of thinking she says all engineers have.
“When I would try to explain something, he would quiz me and tell me to ‘think more logically,’” she says.
Howard earned a bachelor’s degree in engineering from Brown University, in Providence, R.I., then she received both a master’s and doctorate degree in electrical engineering from the University of Southern California. Before joining the faculty of Georgia Tech in 2005, she worked at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory at the California Institute of Technology for more than a decade as a senior robotics researcher and deputy manager in the Office of the Chief Scientist.
ACTIVE VOLUNTEER
Howard’s father was also an IEEE member, but that’s not why she joined the organization. She says she signed up when she was a student because, “that was something that you just did. Plus, my student membership fee was subsidized.”
She kept the membership as a grad student because of the discounted rates members receive on conferences.
Those conferences have had an impact on her career. “They allow you to understand what the state of the art is,” she says. “Back then you received a printed conference proceeding and reading through it was brutal, but by attending it in person, you got a 15-minute snippet about the research.”
Howard is an active volunteer with the IEEE Robotics and Automation and the IEEE Systems, Man, and Cybernetics societies, holding many positions and serving on several committees. She is also featured in the IEEE Impact Creators campaign. These members were selected because they inspire others to innovate for a better tomorrow.
“I value IEEE for its community,” she says. “One of the nice things about IEEE is that it’s international.” Continue reading
Posted in Human Robots
#435642 Drone X Challenge 2020
Krypto Labs opens applications for Drone X Challenge 2020 Phase II, a US$1.5+ Million Global Challenge (US$1 Million Final Prize and US$500,000+ in R&D Grants)
In its most rewarding initiative to date, Krypto Labs, the global innovation hub with a unique ecosystem for funding ground-breaking startups, has announced the opening of Phase II of Drone X Challenge (DXC) 2020, the global multimillion-dollar challenge that is pushing the frontiers of innovation in drone technologies focusing on high payload capacity and high flight endurance.
Drone X Challenge 2020 is open to entrepreneurs, start-ups, researchers, university students and established companies. Teams that want to apply for Drone X Challenge 2020 Phase II will have to develop a drone system capable of achieving the minimum endurance and payload as per the category they are applying to.
Categories:
Fixed-wing drones battery powered
Fixed-wing drones hybrid/hydrocarbon powered
Multi-rotor drones battery powered
Multi-rotor drones hybrid/hydrocarbon powered
Drone X Challenge 2020 is divided in 3 phases and a final event, providing US$1 Million Final Prize. The outstanding applications that meet the requirements of Phase II will collectively receive US$300,000 in R&D grants.
The shortlisted teams of Phase I received US$320,000 in R&D grants, which required applicants to provide a technical proposal detailing the design of a drone capable of meeting the minimum requirements of payload and endurance.
The shortlisted teams of Drone X Challenge 2020 Phase I are:
RigiTech from Switzerland
Forward Robotics from Canada
Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI) from Taiwan
KopterKraft from Germany
DV8 Tech from USA
Richen Power from China
Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI) from Taiwan
Vulcan UAV Ltd from UK
Dr. Saleh Al Hashemi, Managing Director of Krypto Labs said: “This competition aligns with our efforts in contributing to the development of drone technology globally. We aim to redefine the way drone technologies are impacting our lives, and Krypto Labs is proud to be leading the way in the region by supporting startups, established companies, and industries involved in the field of drone development. By catalyzing and supporting these cutting-edge solutions, we aim to continue leveraging disruptive technologies that can create value and make an impact.”
For more information about Drone X Challenge 2020, please visit https://dronexchallenge2020.com. Continue reading
Posted in Human Robots
#435436 Undeclared Wars in Cyberspace Are ...
The US is at war. That’s probably not exactly news, as the country has been engaged in one type of conflict or another for most of its history. The last time we officially declared war was after Japan bombed Pearl Harbor in December 1941.
Our biggest undeclared war today is not being fought by drones in the mountains of Afghanistan or even through the less-lethal barrage of threats over the nuclear programs in North Korea and Iran. In this particular war, it is the US that is under attack and on the defensive.
This is cyberwarfare.
The definition of what constitutes a cyber attack is a broad one, according to Greg White, executive director of the Center for Infrastructure Assurance and Security (CIAS) at The University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA).
At the level of nation-state attacks, cyberwarfare could involve “attacking systems during peacetime—such as our power grid or election systems—or it could be during war time in which case the attacks may be designed to cause destruction, damage, deception, or death,” he told Singularity Hub.
For the US, the Pearl Harbor of cyberwarfare occurred during 2016 with the Russian interference in the presidential election. However, according to White, an Air Force veteran who has been involved in computer and network security since 1986, the history of cyber war can be traced back much further, to at least the first Gulf War of the early 1990s.
“We started experimenting with cyber attacks during the first Gulf War, so this has been going on a long time,” he said. “Espionage was the prime reason before that. After the war, the possibility of expanding the types of targets utilized expanded somewhat. What is really interesting is the use of social media and things like websites for [psychological operation] purposes during a conflict.”
The 2008 conflict between Russia and the Republic of Georgia is often cited as a cyberwarfare case study due to the large scale and overt nature of the cyber attacks. Russian hackers managed to bring down more than 50 news, government, and financial websites through denial-of-service attacks. In addition, about 35 percent of Georgia’s internet networks suffered decreased functionality during the attacks, coinciding with the Russian invasion of South Ossetia.
The cyberwar also offers lessons for today on Russia’s approach to cyberspace as a tool for “holistic psychological manipulation and information warfare,” according to a 2018 report called Understanding Cyberwarfare from the Modern War Institute at West Point.
US Fights Back
News in recent years has highlighted how Russian hackers have attacked various US government entities and critical infrastructure such as energy and manufacturing. In particular, a shadowy group known as Unit 26165 within the country’s military intelligence directorate is believed to be behind the 2016 US election interference campaign.
However, the US hasn’t been standing idly by. Since at least 2012, the US has put reconnaissance probes into the control systems of the Russian electric grid, The New York Times reported. More recently, we learned that the US military has gone on the offensive, putting “crippling malware” inside the Russian power grid as the U.S. Cyber Command flexes its online muscles thanks to new authority granted to it last year.
“Access to the power grid that is obtained now could be used to shut something important down in the future when we are in a war,” White noted. “Espionage is part of the whole program. It is important to remember that cyber has just provided a new domain in which to conduct the types of activities we have been doing in the real world for years.”
The US is also beginning to pour more money into cybersecurity. The 2020 fiscal budget calls for spending $17.4 billion throughout the government on cyber-related activities, with the Department of Defense (DoD) alone earmarked for $9.6 billion.
Despite the growing emphasis on cybersecurity in the US and around the world, the demand for skilled security professionals is well outpacing the supply, with a projected shortfall of nearly three million open or unfilled positions according to the non-profit IT security organization (ISC)².
UTSA is rare among US educational institutions in that security courses and research are being conducted across three different colleges, according to White. About 10 percent of the school’s 30,000-plus students are enrolled in a cyber-related program, he added, and UTSA is one of only 21 schools that has received the Cyber Operations Center of Excellence designation from the National Security Agency.
“This track in the computer science program is specifically designed to prepare students for the type of jobs they might be involved in if they went to work for the DoD,” White said.
However, White is extremely doubtful there will ever be enough cyber security professionals to meet demand. “I’ve been preaching that we’ve got to worry about cybersecurity in the workforce, not just the cybersecurity workforce, not just cybersecurity professionals. Everybody has a responsibility for cybersecurity.”
Artificial Intelligence in Cybersecurity
Indeed, humans are often seen as the weak link in cybersecurity. That point was driven home at a cybersecurity roundtable discussion during this year’s Brainstorm Tech conference in Aspen, Colorado.
Participant Dorian Daley, general counsel at Oracle, said insider threats are at the top of the list when it comes to cybersecurity. “Sadly, I think some of the biggest challenges are people, and I mean that in a number of ways. A lot of the breaches really come from insiders. So the more that you can automate things and you can eliminate human malicious conduct, the better.”
White noted that automation is already the norm in cybersecurity. “Humans can’t react as fast as systems can launch attacks, so we need to rely on automated defenses as well,” he said. “This doesn’t mean that humans are not in the loop, but much of what is done these days is ‘scripted’.”
The use of artificial intelligence, machine learning, and other advanced automation techniques have been part of the cybersecurity conversation for quite some time, according to White, such as pattern analysis to look for specific behaviors that might indicate an attack is underway.
“What we are seeing quite a bit of today falls under the heading of big data and data analytics,” he explained.
But there are signs that AI is going off-script when it comes to cyber attacks. In the hands of threat groups, AI applications could lead to an increase in the number of cyberattacks, wrote Michelle Cantos, a strategic intelligence analyst at cybersecurity firm FireEye.
“Current AI technology used by businesses to analyze consumer behavior and find new customer bases can be appropriated to help attackers find better targets,” she said. “Adversaries can use AI to analyze datasets and generate recommendations for high-value targets they think the adversary should hit.”
In fact, security researchers have already demonstrated how a machine learning system could be used for malicious purposes. The Social Network Automated Phishing with Reconnaissance system, or SNAP_R, generated more than four times as many spear-phishing tweets on Twitter than a human—and was just as successful at targeting victims in order to steal sensitive information.
Cyber war is upon us. And like the current war on terrorism, there are many battlefields from which the enemy can attack and then disappear. While total victory is highly unlikely in the traditional sense, innovations through AI and other technologies can help keep the lights on against the next cyber attack.
Image Credit: pinkeyes / Shutterstock.com Continue reading
Posted in Human Robots